Tracking meteors and spacecraft with the Desert Fireball Network

21/10/2022 33 min
Tracking meteors and spacecraft with the Desert Fireball Network

Listen "Tracking meteors and spacecraft with the Desert Fireball Network"

Episode Synopsis

Dr Ellie Sansom, the program manager of the Australian Desert Fireball Network, is a mission scientist for NASA's Mars InSight mission and a member of Curtin University's Space Science and Technology Centre. In this episode of the Space Connect Podcast, we talk about her exciting work on the Desert Fireball Network (DFN) and what secrets it is helping us unlock about our solar system. We also discuss the role the DFN played in observing JAXA's Hayabusa2 asteroid probe, as well as the recent fly-by of NASA's Lucy spacecraft. Finally, we speak about the exciting possibilities of NASA's research on Mars and discuss what direction future research might take.